Swingers

Swingers

by Marco M. Pardi

“Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last.” Publius Syrus (85-43 BCE)

“Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.” Malcolm Muggeridge. 1966

All comments are sincerely welcome and will receive a response.

Remember those days of childhood fun playing on a swing, straining to go as high as possible? Or those evenings when you were older and could slip into the park playground and go back in time on the swing, straining less but feeling the A frame pull out of the ground behind you? That drive to go higher – deeper? – into the blue sky or to float among the stars, imagining the ability to do so but knowing of the broken bones that would result from letting go? Somewhere up there we reached apogee, though we knew that word only later. Somewhere up there the chains reached their limits, gravity found us and quietly but forcefully asserted dominance. We tucked up our legs and let the pendulum do what pendulums eventually do, unlike that huge pendulum we saw at the science museum that swings with the motion of the Earth. No, we’re not that glorious.

Sometimes it seemed we were spending our whole lives trying to swing up, only to be brought down again. Day passed into night and again became day. Our minds and bodies gravitated into a work – off time schedule we hardly noticed after a while. It just seemed natural. We were part of the work force. We were productive, although many of us had long given up on ever knowing what exactly we produced. But knowing that became less necessary as we learned to measure the value of our lives by more immediate standards: Bank account; home; transportation; family; friends, – not necessarily in that order. And on we swung. Because….well….we were swingers.

And as we swung we looked at people on other swings. And wondered if we made the right choice. Would we have been happier on another swing, or made more money, or been happier with a different spouse? Some of us considered our options. Could we leap to that other, seemingly more attractive swing? What would we leave behind? Would we be shamed by our families, our former co-workers, our friends?

As long ago as the mid 1960’s college Sociology texts were warning readers that college students soon entering the work force must be prepared to change careers three to five times during their working lives. They did not mean changing location with the same company, or even career field. They meant changing careers – what we do for a living. Of course, certain professions were likely immune from this threat. But this seemed extreme to me. Until I found myself teaching college courses in 1969. One of the first things I noticed was the older ages of several of the students. They weren’t late in starting college; they were returning to college with one or more degrees already in hand. They were preparing to change careers.

Changing careers can be a scary thought, especially if it is forced upon you by circumstances you cannot control. Of course, there are always those who discovered too late into their college years that the field they were getting a degree in was not really what they wanted in life. They were too late in that just starting over was financially not an option. And, the doors were quickly closing on those jobs for which any college diploma would do.

Some of those same 1960’s textbooks mentioned the need for “Leisure Studies”. Again, I was a bit perplexed. I had not had much in the way of leisure, but I felt I didn’t need any help in using it if I ever got it. Nonetheless, Leisure Studies began blooming at universities around the country. I had images of freshly degreed people (what do you call a specialist in Leisure Studies?) fanning out across Florida, a State with more liquor stores per square mile than any other place on Earth, to rouse old people off parks benches – or call the EMTs for those who were stiff. I still haven’t used my leisure time to find out exactly what these graduates do.

Inevitably, as we swing along among the other swings we notice that faces come and go. Friends for Life, even Soul Mates are no longer there. Oh, yes. We promised to keep in touch. How long ago was that? It’ll come to me. Many of them reached their apogee and the swing chains came unfastened; they achieved lift-off, floating out there in the Void somewhere. Others, probably so. Are they around me now, giving my swing an occasional push? Sometimes I wonder.

The same Sociology texts that advised students to be prepared for career change also discussed what can happen when work-life is effectively over, a kind of terminal velocity. Many people come to define themselves through their work. It may be as casual as saying, I’m an engineer. Or, it may be as comprehensive as saying, Engineering is in my blood. Of course, that leaves one wondering what one is when the opportunity to engineer is no longer there. Rachel McAlpine, writing from New Zealand, posed this issue in her recent blog. Essentially, she asked what we lost when we stopped working. I answered by writing, “I found me before I found ‘a job’. So, everything I did thereafter was just me being me. I lost nothing when it came time for me to continue just being me.”

Some would say that suggests not being fully dedicated to the job or career. I would say it is simply the ability to compartmentalize. And I speak from a position of having held three careers concurrently, not to mention all the familial permutations that developed along the way.

So what about those individuals who were totally invested in their careers? Ever heard it said about someone in retirement, They don’t know what to do with themselves? Oh, we can offer distractions but how effective are they, and are they addressing the issue or are they simply “killing time” until the swing comes to a stop. In recent years I have noticed there are many more social activities for older women than for older men. Okay, men don’t live quite as long. Those texts mentioned earlier warned of an association, perhaps causative, between retirement and death. Loss of meaningful identity seems to be a health issue (I think television, such as FOX NEWS is a key vector).

I hope it’s obvious that I enjoy writing this blog. I certainly have other things to do but I make time to do this. I particularly enjoy the comments and the opportunity to interact with people even if it is only “electronic”.

How about you, Dear Reader? Have you planned the plan, or do you take it as it comes?